The Asia-Pacific pay-TV services market is expected to see sluggish growth in revenue from US$62.5bn in 2021 to US$64.7bn in 2026, reflecting a meagre CAGR of 0.7%, mainly due to the continued decline in cable TV subscriptions and a drop in average spend per pay-TV account in the region, forecasts GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s Asia-Pacific pay-TV Forecast Model (October-2021) indicates that pay-TV subscriptions will increase at a marginal CAGR of 1.4% over the forecast period 2021-2026, supported by the growth in direct-to-home (DTH) and Internet-protocol-television (IPTV) subscriptions.

The average monthly spend per pay-TV account overall will however fall from US$5.60 to US$5.32 between 2021 and 2026 with more users across the region migrating to the over-the-top (OTT) video entertainment services. Competitive pricing strategies and discounts being offered by the pay-TV operators to compete with OTT service providers will also hit revenue growth in the market through the forecast period.

Aasif Iqbal, Telecom Analyst at GlobalData, says: “IPTV will remain the leading pay-TV platform in the region, by subscriber base, with its share in the total pay-TV subscriptions growing from 44.9% in 2021 to 48.2% in 2026. A rapid deployment of FTTH/B network in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, China, and Malaysia has been a major catalyst for IPTV adoption in these markets, and in the region in general.

China, which led the IPTV segment in the region in terms of subscriptions, will go on to account for 78.2% of the total pay-TV subscriptions in the region by the end of 2026.

Iqbal concludes: “Pay-TV operators in the Asia-Pacific region are striving hard to retain their customer base and strengthen their content proposition by incorporating OTT offerings into their service bundles. In Australia, Foxtel is making pay-TV service bundles inclusive of fibre broadband more appealing to customers by pairing them with OTT services like Netflix. Similarly, LGU+ South Korea is offering free subscription of Netflix if bundled with fixed broadband, pay-TV and mobile services.”